One for the Road
by Scrubbynutz
Summary: an eccentric stranger laments on the way a project turned out...


  
  
  
  


It hadn't always been quiet in this place. There was always a place with activity abundant: activity of both positive and negative accord, but always movement. It wasn't totally crowded with people in the streets at any and every ungodly hour, but there was definitely a person or two wandering around during the night around here. A stray dog, perhaps a homeless man or woman scavenging the urban dumpster they called home. A few rats or squirrels, the occasional firefly. I would give anything to see a tree again. A living, breathing, beautiful green tree: a flowering one, with pretty pink cherry blossoms and maybe a few sparrow's nests. I tire of this damned steel landscape and the depression that hangs off every rotting streetlight in this forsaken hole. 

  
  


For years now, Earth hasn't been Earth. This town, nameless, faceless and lifeless, is all that holds them from the outside. An outside of fire, brimstone and everything any young catholic is accustomed to. There are endless ashen fields, miles and miles of bones heaped in massive hills that black out the sun- if the red sky didn't darken it first. A lava river, volcanoes that spew shrapnel and noxious gasses. There is no land of purity like there once was a long time ago. People used to call it "heaven". I used to call it heaven. It was gorgeous- a place where endless sky and cloud met a gorgeous forest and a gorgeous garden. The gardens' long gone, we have no use for it any more. But the funny thing about that story? No one seems to remember when it happened. No one seems to remember when the faith was cast aside either. Isn't that just hilarious? Somewhere along the line, someone just stopped taking notes. The man upstairs doesn't give clues any more: the church has been derelict for ages, followers no longer looking for hope because they know he won't deliver. Luck is an impossibility- faith an abomination. I'm sorry. 

  
  


But there are a few who look to "divine" influence for inspiration. No, not god. Not Buddha, Allah, Olofi, the angels or spirits or any other foolish idols. The modern gods are those who command the silicon, wire, steel, and glass. Men in white coats have become the idols and hopegivers to the teeming masses of idiocy they dare to turn their noses up to. I remember the pioneers, back when the computer was used for entertainment and saving lives and knowledge- not control. Pioneers, blasphemers and soul stealers like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I remember the old days, and thats what makes me dangerous. The gods of silicon have no use for someone who gives foolish ideas for hope and prosperity that conflict with theirs- I am barred from those I once loved, and I do not have the luxury of anger- where would I direct it?

  
  


I am alone, here. The only one who acknowledges my advances are the occasional people who lose focus, think they're hearing things. These moments are few and fleeting as I dig through the clutter of a once proud world that I was proud to say I had traveled. I remember trodding through a slick rainforest in Brazil, in summer one year. The sights were breathtaking. Green everywhere, the occsaional sunburst through thin-leaved canopy. A mist was everywhere covering everything in an etheric glow once the sun caught it. And once I remember being in Alaska, atop a snowy hill- or was it a mountain? I don't remember. No matter where I looked, I couldn't tell where the sky stopped and where the world began. A huge peak covered the sun a little, casting blue shadows all over the snowy drifts that had collected, and sparkling bits in the whitefield shimmered in the fading morning like thousands of stars. I remember floating in the middle of the sea- I don't remember which- and marvelling at fields of dark green kelp spackled with bright colored animals that shot through the water. Little blurs of color dancing at my feet and the waving patterns of the light casting waving patterns on the sandy ground. 

  
  


All those times, I thought I was in that garden again, as I had been long ago, when I was at peace. But no. My garden couldn't have been turned into this spherical abomination floating through a worthless expanse of meaningless space. My world, my beautiful Earth, my jewel. It was all mine once. But now its theirs. I bear them no ill will, though. It wasn't my fault. It couldn't have been. How could I have known it would have come to this? I couldn't. I couldn't... it was a conscious choice by them. It was their choice alone, over time, to forsake me. I am no longer needed. I am just here for... I am just here. As a watcher, as a recorder, perhaps. I will not make the same mistake again- I must know how to fix it. I did something, sometime, somewhere that changed everything, and I will find it and eradicate it. 

  
  


Perhaps it is I that has lost interest? Maybe I just simply gave no more thougt to my Earth? It seems strange how once I looked away, my Earth was tired and poor, slowly pulling from the seams I set for it so many years ago. Perhaps it is time to let go of my Earth. I have wronged her, whether they realize it or not, but I don't know where and when and how. But someday, somehow, I will. Maybe Earth will become aware of her own plight and take action. But I can no longer be responsible. I have new matters to attend to- and I will not let my new children become flawed. This time- no one will know I exist... my last children made me into their God, when I'm nothing more than a faceless creator. Maybe... maybe this time will be better? No more wars in my name, no more bloodshed or stupidity- I am NOT an excuse for that, I never was. My new children will have minds of their own, ideas of their own, not tainted by those who knew of me in the past and decided to twist my image to their own horrid needs and desires.

  
  


No... this time... I am not going to be there.


End file.
